Monster Fun - Descriptive Writing

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Hey, hey everyone!

I have a super fun activity to share today. It is not mine. This idea came from my sweet teammate Linda! She is awesome and full of fun ideas! (she was also my son's teacher when he was in 4th grade so I have a special place in my heart for her:)

Anyway......4th graders in Florida have to take a writing test. We work and work all year to prepare our kiddos. If you read my last post you'll know that most of my kids can give me the "bones" of the paper but it's lacking "meat".....those descriptive details that really amp up their paper and make it come alive!!!

Since we are getting close to Halloween, we decided to pull in some monster fun! Hopefully I can explain this so it all makes sense because it is just too fun to do!

Here we go:

First give the kids each a blank piece of paper and read them this story. Make sure you have the book hidden in a folder so they can't see it. You only read to the middle (to the part where the monster's whole face is made.) Give them time to color as you go. When you are done and they have had time to finish show them the cover and have them hold up their pics.

This is a great time to talk about details and description, or lack of....

Now the super fun starts....give each kiddo 2 white pieces of paper and a notecard. Everyone draws and colors their own monster. Once they are done, they need to write the description of the monster they drew on the notecard. Then they trade notecards with another student (who wasn't sitting close to them to see their monster). That student draws a monster using the description only.

This was spread out over a couple of days. Today was the best! One at a time a student would come up, read the description on the card that they were given and then the person who wrote the description joined them and on 3 they each revealed their monsters!!!

1, 2, 3...

You should have heard the ooohs and awwwws coming from the kids and ME!

I was blown away by how good and close these kids got it by description on a card only!

Of course they learned the better the description, the more the drawings matched:)

Here are a few up close with their description cards

Crazy fun!!!!!

Hope this is something you can use to help drive home that message of descriptive writing with a little fun thrown in:)

I did a similar thing with the book "The Monster Trap" by Dean Morrissey. We drew monsters of our own and on a separate piece of paper we described our own monster. Then we sent the descriptions to my sister-in-laws class at another school and she gave us their descriptions. Then the children drew the other students monster based on the description. We sent the pictures back to the original student who could tell how accurate their description was based on the new drawing. The children LOVED it!!-LisaGrade 4 Buzz

About Me

I'm a Christian, wife, mother of 2 wonderful teenagers, and a 4th grade teacher. I love watching my daughter bang balls on the beach volleyball courts and my son playing golf. I also enjoy gardening, reading, singing, and hanging with my family.

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